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The mop-up of global ad revenues by Facebook and Google (owned by Alphabet) showed no signs of slowing in 2017 (and in the fourth quarter), despite both tech giants facing growing pressure for the way they display advertisers’ products. All the pressure from media companies (such as News Corp), governments (the UK, Australia, NZ, Germany to name a few) and advertisers and their agencies didn’t hurt Google and Facebook in 2017, who both lifted their combined ad take for the year by 27% to US$135 billion (more than AU$175 billion). Google hoovered up nearly $95.37 billion, up 20% (and a record) on 2016, while Facebook saw faster growth from a lower base — it grabbed a record $40.65 billion in ad revenues last year — that’s a rise of more than 50%. Looking at their performance since 2015, the mop-up is even more startling — in 2015 the two companies had total ad revenues of $84.4 billion, so the rise of the two years has been a breathtaking $51 billion or more than 60%.

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